Battle of Kursk
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| The battle of Kursk | |||||||||||||||||
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| Conflict | World War II | ||||||||||||||||
| Date | July 4, 1943 - July 22, 1943 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | Kursk, USSR | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | Indecisive | ||||||||||||||||
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The Battle of Kursk was a decisive battle on the Eastern Front of World War II. It remains the largest armored battle of all time, and included the most costly single day of aerial warfare in history. Initiated as a German offensive, the Soviet defense managed to stop their ambitions and launch a successful counteroffensive.
Background
The German Army relied on armored forces to push through enemy lines at high-speed, the famous Blitzkrieg tactic. This meant they were only able to assume the offense during the summer when the Russian summer had dried out the ground enough for the tanks to be highly mobile. The Eastern Front had thus developed into a series of German advances in the summer, followed by Soviet counterattacks in the winter.
In the winter of 1942 the Soviets won conclusively during the Battle of Stalingrad. One complete German army had been lost, along with about 300,000 men, seriously depleting German strength in the east. With an Allied invasion of Europe clearly looming, Hitler realized that an outright defeat of the Soviets before the western Allies arrived was unlikely, and decided to force the Soviets to a draw.
In 1917 the Germans had built the famous Hindenburg line on the western front, shortening their lines and thereby increasing their defensive strength. They planned on repeating this strategy in Russia and started construction of a massive series of defensive works known as the Panther-Wotan line. Late in 1943 they would retreat to the line, and proceed to bleed the Soviets white against it while their forces were able to mend.
In February and March 1943 Erich von Manstein had completed an offensive during the Second Battle of Kharkov, leaving the front line running roughly from Leningrad in the north to Rostov in the south. In the middle was a large 200 km wide and 150 km deep salient (bulge) in the lines between German forward positions near Orel in the north, and Manstein's recently captured Kharkov in the south.
German Plans
Manstein pressed for a new offensive based on the same successful lines he had just pursued at Kharkov, when he cut off an overextended Soviet offensive. He suggested tricking the Soviets into attacking in the south against the desperately re-forming 6th Army, leading them into the Donets Basin in the eastern Ukraine. He would then turn south from Kharkov on the eastern side of the Donets River towards Rostov and trap the entire southern wing of the Red Army against the Sea of Azov.
OKW did not approve the plan, and instead turned their attention to the obvious bulge in the lines between Orel and Kharkov. There were three complete armies in and around the salient, and pinching it off would trap almost a fifth of the Red Army's manpower. It would also result in a much straighter and shorter line, and capture the strategically useful railway town of Kursk located on the main north-south railway line running from Rostov to Moscow.
In March the plans were settled. Walther Model's 9th Army would attack south from Orel while Hoth's 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf under the overall command of Manstein would attack north from Kharkov. They were to meet near Kursk, but if the offensive went well they were allowed to continue forward on their own initiative, with a general plan to create a new line on the Don River far to the east.
Unlike recent efforts, Hitler gave the General Staff considerable control over the planning of the battle. Over the next few weeks they continued to increase the scope of the forces attached to the front, stripping the entire German line of practically anything remotely useful in the upcoming battle. The battle was first set for May 4, but then delayed until June 12, and finally July 4 in order to allow more time for new weapons to arrive from Germany, especially the new Panther tanks.
It is worth discussing this plan in terms of the traditional, and successful, blitzkrieg tactic used up to this point. Blitzkrieg depended on massing all available troops at a single point on the enemy line, breaking through, and then running as fast as possible to cut off the front line troops from supply and information. Direct combat was to be avoided at all costs, there is no point in attacking a strongpoint if the same ends can be had by instead attacking the trucks supplying them. The best place for Blitzkrieg was the least expected, which is why they had attacked through the Ardennes in 1940, and towards Stalingrad in 1942.
OKW's Operation Citadel was the antithesis of this concept. The point of attack was painfully obvious to anyone with a map, and reflected World War I thinking more than the Blitzkrieg. A number of German commanders questioned the idea, notably Heinz Guderian who asked Hitler Was it really necessary to attack Kursk, and indeed in the east that year at all? Do you think anyone even knows where Kursk is?. Perhaps more surprisingly Hitler replied I know. The thought of it turns my stomach.
Simply put, it was an uninspired plan.
Soviet Plans
The Red Army was also planning for their own upcoming summer offensives, and had settled on a plan that was a mirror of the Germans. Attacks in front of Orel and Kharkov would flatten out the line, and potentially lead to a breakout near the Pripyat Marshes. However there was considerable concern over the German plans.
All previous German attacks had left the Soviets guessing where it would come from, and in this case Kursk seemed too obvious for the Germans to attack. However they were then warned of the German plans through a spy ring in Switzerland.
Stalin and a handful of the Red Army Stavka (General Staff) wanted to strike first. They felt that history had demonstrated that they were unable to stand up to German offensives, while action during the winter showed their own offensives were now working well. However the overwhelming advice of the Stavka, notably Georgi Zhukov, was to wait for the Germans to exhaust themselves in their attack first. His opinion swayed the argument.
The German delay in launching their offensive gave the Soviets four months in which to prepare, and with every passing day they turned the salient into one of the most heavily defended points on earth. The Red Army laid over 400,000 landmines and dug about 5,000 kilometers of trenches, with positions as far back as 175km. In addition they massed a huge army of their own, including some 1,300,000 men, 3,600 tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces and 2,400 aircraft. It was still unclear whether or not it would help; in the past the Germans had overrun their lines with seeming ease.
The Germans were well aware of the Soviet defenses. Why they did not then switch targets remains a mystery.
Operation Citadel
It took four months before the Germans felt ready, by which time they had collected 200 of the new Panther tanks, 90 Elefant tank destroyers, every flyable Henschel Hs 129 ground attack aircraft, as well as a host of Tiger Is and late model Panzer IVs. In total they assembled some 2,700 tanks and assault guns, 1,800 aircraft and 900,000 men. It was the greatest concentration of German fighting power ever put together. Even so, Hitler expressed doubts about its adequacy.
Preliminary fighting started on the 4th of July. In the afternoon Junkers Ju 87 Stukas bombed a two mile wide gap in the front lines on the north in a short period of 10 minutes, and then turned for home while the German artillery opened up to continue the pounding. Hoth's armored spearhead, the 3rd Panzer Korps, then advanced on the Soviet positions around Savidovka. At the same time the Großdeutschland Panzer Grenadier Regiment attacked Butovo in torrential rain, and the high ground around Butovo was taken by 11th Panzer Division. To the west of Butovo the going proved tougher for Großdeutschland and 3rd Panzer Division who met stiff Soviet resistance and did not secure their objectives until midnight.
In the south the 2nd SS Panzer Korps were launching their preliminary attacks to secure observation posts, and again were met with stiff resistance until assault troops equipped with flame-throwers cleared the bunkers and outposts. At 22:30 the Soviets hit back with an artillery bombardment which, aided by the torrential rain, slowed the German advance. By this time Zhukov had been briefed on the information about the start of the offensive gained by the German prisoners and decided to launch a pre-emptive artillery bombardment on the German positions.
The real battle opened on 5 July 1943. The Soviets, now aware even of the exact time, commenced a massive artillery bombardment of the German lines 10 minutes prior. This was soon followed by a massive attack by the VVS on the Luftwaffe airbases in the area, in an attempt to reverse the tables on the old German "trick" of wiping out local air support within the first hour of battle. The next few hours turned into what is likely the largest air battle to ever be fought. The Luftwaffe defended itself successfully and lost very little of its fighting power, but from now on it was challenged by the Soviets.
The 9th Panzer Army in the north found itself almost unable to move. Within only minutes of starting forward they were trapped in the huge defensive minefields, and needed engineering units to come up and clear them under artillery fire. Model's army had fewer tanks than Manstein had in the south. He also used a different tactic, using only some units at a time thus saving the others for later use, whereas the Germans usually would attack with everything they had got to maximise the effect. This was something they were able to do because of their superior training of low-ranking officers and individual soldiers. For some reason Model did not use this tactic, though.
After a week they had moved only 10km into the lines, and on the 12th the Soviets launched their northern arm against the 2nd Army at Orel. The 9th had to be withdrawn and their part in the offensive was over. Their casualty rate versus the Red Army was about 5:3 in their favour. This was however far worse than usual, and very far from where it needed to be in order to keep up with the steady influx of new soldiers and materiel for the Red Army.
In the south things went somewhat better for the Germans. The armored spearhead of the Hoth's 4th Panzer Army forced their way forward, and by the 6th were some 30km behind the lines at the small town Prokhorovka. Considering that they had attacked without the element of surprise against a dug-in and numerically superior enemy, this was quite an achievement.
The Red Army was forced to deploy troops originally planned to be used in the counteroffensive. The German flank, however, was unprotected as Kempf's divisions were stalled by 7th Guards Army, and by heavy rain, after crossing the River Donets. The 5th Guards Tank Army were situated to the east of Prokhorovka and were preparing a counterattack of their own when II SS Panzer Korps arrived and an intense struggle ensued. The Soviets managed to halt the SS - but only just. There was now little to stop the 4th Panzer Army, and it looked like a breakout was a very real possibility. The Soviets decided to deploy the rest of the 5th Guards.
Prokhorovka
On 12 July the Luftwaffe and artillery units bombed the Soviet positions as the SS divisions formed up. Traditionally this battle has been described like this: The German advance started and they were astonished to see masses of Soviet armor advancing towards them. What followed was the largest tank engagement ever, with over 1,500 tanks in close contact. The air forces of both countries flew overhead, but they were unable to see anything through the dust and smoke pouring out from destroyed tanks. On the ground, commanders were unable to keep track of developments and the battle rapidly degenerated into an immense number of confused and bitter small-unit actions, often at close quarters. The fighting raged on all day, and by evening the last shots were being fired as the two sides disengaged. German losses amounted to over 300 tanks with the Soviets losing a similar number.
However, this description of the battle of Prokhorovka has been proven to be the invention of Soviet propaganda. It has been depicted among other things on large mural paintings. It was a Soviet victory only in one sense, the German attack was halted. Most Soviet tanks were destroyed by the Germans at long range, and relatively few were involved in short range exchanges of fire. German losses were actually relatively few and for most of the day they were fighting in good order. The Soviet losses were 322 tanks, of which more than half beyond repair, more than 1000 dead and an additional 2500 missing or wounded. German losses were less than 20% of that. The Germans had however planned to be on the offensive that day, and because of the Red Army attack their advance had been halted.
Continue or not?
The overall battle (of Kursk) still hung in the balance. German forces on the southern wing were exhausted and heavily attrited, but at the same time faced equally weak defenses and were in excellent position, clear of the defensive works and with no forces between them and Kursk. Relief forces were being held ready for just this moment, maybe the battle could still be won.
And then, everything changed
On 11 July, in the midst of Citadel, US and British forces landed on Sicily during Operation Husky. Hitler called von Kluge and Manstein to his Wolfsschanze headquarters in East Prussia and declared that he was calling Citadel off. Manstein was furious, and argued that one final effort and the battle could be won. Hitler would have none of it, particularly as the Soviets had launched their counteroffensive in the north.
Some German units were immediately sent off to Italy, and only limited attacks continued in the south, to get rid of a Soviet force squeezed between two German armies.
Soviet counteroffensive
Although unaware of the change in Hitler's plans, the attacks near Kursk were obviously ending. The Soviets put their pre-Citadel plans into action. On 15 July the attacks on Orel were opened with the release of the entire Soviet Central Front. The Germans withdrew to the partly prepared Hagen line at the base of the salient. German forces were sent from the south to the north to help cover the retreat. Although the retreating German forces inflicted severe casualties upon the red army, this was the first time there had been a Soviet advance in the summer, drastically boosting Russian morale.
To the south the Russians needed more time to re-group after the severe beating they had been taking during July and could not open their counterattack until 3 August. Aided by diversionary attacks further south they were able to take von Manstein's hard-won Belgorod. The capture of Belgorod and Orel was celebrated with fireworks in Moscow, a practice that from now on became an institution with every recaptured city. They reached Kharkov on the 11th, a city Hitler said would be defended at all costs. The German units were now very fatigued, having fought daily for several weeks. Their manpower had been reduced and they lacked equipment. On the 20th all German forces in the area had to withdraw.
Battle ends
On the 22nd both forces were utterly exhausted and fighting (officially) drew to a close. The battle was not a clear-cut victory for the Soviets who had suffered much higher casualties than the Germans. The Germans however had for the first time lost substantial territories during summer and had not been able to achieve their goals. A new front had opened in Italy diverting their attention. Both sides had their losses, but only the Soviets had the manpower and the industrial production to recover fully, not to mention the very substantial help they got from American lend-lease, including the very efficient jeeps and trucks that many say made the counter-offensive at Kursk possible. The Germans never regained the initiative after Kursk.
Soviet's claimed more than 500,000 Germans were killed or wounded. This again has been proven to be Soviet propaganda. In reality, the German lost around 56,000 men killed. The Soviet casualty figures were not released until the end of the communist regime, and comprised 250,000 killed and 600,000 wounded. They also lost 50% of their tank strength during the Kursk offensive.
Moreover the loss convinced Hitler of the incompetence of his General Staff. When given the chance, his generals selected a poor plan, and he decided to make sure this would not happen again. The opposite was true of Stalin, however. After seeing his generals' intuition justified on the battlefield, he stepped back from the strategic planning and left that entirely to the military.
The results for both sides were predictable: the German army went from loss to loss as Hitler attempted to personally micromanage the day-to-day operations of what was soon a three-front war, while the Soviet army gained more freedom and became more and more fluid as the war continued.
Reference
- David M. Glantz & Jonathan M. House, The Battle of Kursk (University Press of Kansas, 1999)
- The battle for Kursk, 1943 : the Soviet General Staff study, translated and edited by David M. Glantz and Harold S. Orenstein, (London ; Portland, OR : Frank Cass, 1999).
- Niklas Zetterling & Anders Frankson, Kursk 1943 : a statistical analysis, (London ; Portland, OR : Frank Cass, 2000).